Adding A Pendant Light To Create A New Eating Zone

Sorry we haven’t been more frequent bloggers over the past two days. We’ve spent Thursday and Friday stuffing our faces and being thankful for fabulous family and friends… and for the fact that our new pendant light from CB2 is finally hung over our new dining area. Here it is as seen from the kitchen:

And from the “living” side of our living/dining room:

It’s amazing how dragging a table and chairs into one side of our living room and adding a light fixture creates an instant dining area that everyone thinks has always been there. It’s like it was meant to be! Getting that pendant lamp added only cost around a hundred dollars- a small price to pay for a brand new eating space that works perfectly for “open living” lovers like us. And since we conveniently placed our dining area right off of our kitchen, it’s easy to serve and set the table thanks to the close proximity.

Speaking of the kitchen, the electricians also rewired that room as well (it’s a total lighting makeover- we’ll blog about our five new recessed lights in a little while) and hung our seeded glass pendant from West Elm over the sink as well (ignore the ugly ceiling marks, we’ve got some spacklin’ to do).

Oh and we got new windows for the ENTIRE HOUSE. Which make all the difference! See how sparkly new they look in the photo above? Now the whole house is a lot less drafty than it used to be with 50+ year old windows everywhere. And our new double hung versions with Argon and Low-E are tax write offs, too. What more could an old house ask for? It only took the window guys about three hours and after I spent the next day repainting all the window molding a bright glossy white, it was a total facelift for every room.

Hope everyone else is having a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend. We’re off to stomp around our old stomping ground- NYC- for the next two days (where we met and fell in love). Should be fun and freezing. Of course we’ll keep you posted about everything from the new CB2 store in Soho to Burger’s take on the big apple.

Comments

Hello…I love your pendant light. I have checked out CB2 and found a similar one, but it is a plug-in style. I was wondering…did you have an electrician convert this to hardwired and do the installation professionally, or did you do it yourselves? (Or did yours come ready for hardwiring?)

We actually converted it ourselves by snipping off the plug to expose the internal wires which can then be connected directly to a ceiling fixture box. Of course you should check with CB2 first to ensure that the particular pendant that you’re eying can be converted this way (the CB2 peeps assured us ours was a-ok, although some lights can’t be hardwired this way since their cord isn’t meant to hold that much weight). Hope it helps!

Just out of curiosity (I hope you don’t find my asking rude) about how much did it cost you to replace all your windows? We have a ’50s ranch with original, single-pane, metal-frame windows. We’re afraid to even get an estimate for replacements, for fear of hearing it’s going to cost $20,000. Any advice is much appreciated! Your house is lovely and you’re both inspirational. Could your husband please come teach mine how to be handy? Hahaha.

Check out Sherry’s comment over on (this more recent post) where she’s outlined all that you need to know. And ha! I’m still waiting for someone to teach me how to be handy. For now I’m just relying on trial and error. So far we haven’t messed anything up too bad!

I stumbled upon your website while trying to figure out how to paint kitchen cabinets. I adore your style and am taking many ideas. Thank you! One question…. Can you tell me more about your dining table? I really like it!

Our dining table was a steal from Target (we later added a leather bench on one side to break up all those wooden chairs). The exact model is no longer available but I’m sure you can find something similar on target.com (look for something with straight legs as opposed to anything too curvy and ornate). Happy hunting…

Came across your site and after a year of being totally burnt out with trying to “update” our 1960’s ranch house, I am newly reinspired!
I wanted to hear more about your window replacement experience. Did they remove the old windows from the inside or outside? How messy was it?
Thanks!

Goo question about the windows. Outside from the fact that it was a bit cold for the few hours that they were switching ’em out, the window surgery was totally painless. They removed them entirely from the outside and then reinstalled them 99% from the outside (but also came in to caulk around them). They cleaned up after themselves very well and they even sent a quality control person out a week later who tightened a few lose screens and made sure everything looked immaculate. Hope it helps!

I adore your blog! I stumbled in after seeing a comment about it in a friend’s blog recently!

I am curious about the molding around your windows? Did you install it? I have plain windows with no trim whatsoever and I’m looking to add to it.
What about the bottom “shelf” on the window… is that part of the trim?

It was fairly easy to do, one we had the right tool (miter saw) but it does require patience. Oh but we didn’t have to replace the window sill / shelf part, it was already built in. Sorry we’re no help there!

I know this is a really old post, but I remember reading it and thought I would get some helpful information. Also, if this question is too personal I completely understand. Disclaimer stated, here is my question: how much did you spend on new windows for your house? A ballpark figure is fine. I need to replace the windows in my house, and I’ve heard lots of different figures, so I don’t know where to start!

We are also getting our windows replaced soon by Window World. We found their price to be the best. We have a big bay window similar to yours. How does yours open? Did you get double hung on the sides or do the sides slide open?

Oldie but a goodie post I suppose. :) I was thinking about replacing our old windows this year, and remembered you guys replaced them on your first house, but have you done so on your other two? If not, was there something that you found that made it not worth it, or did they just come with better windows?

In our first house they were old 50s windows and you could feel the breeze coming through (SO not energy efficient). In our second house half of the house was an addition that had newer windows and half of them were older, but not as drafty as the ones in our first house (they were about 10-15 years newer so maybe that had to do with things?). Our current house is decades newer than our first and second house so during the inspection we just asked the inspector “do you think all the windows need to be replaced?” and he checked them all out and said they looked great and were all in fine condition so they were probably going to be fine. So far, so good! I would honestly just put your hand in front of yours and if it’s drafty or just feels like heat is escaping or cold air is poring in, that’s when I’d spring for new ones.

I love the dinning room/living room layout. I want to do something similar in our 1950’s brick ranch. What were the dimensions if your living room? It all seems to fit in there so well, and I’m a bit worried it might feel cramped in our 12×20 living room.